Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 44.djvu/287

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LITERARY NOTICES.
277

to its simplest elements; it provides for the vowels, and is on an alphabetic and syllabic basis. (Macmillan & Co., $1.25.)

The seventeenth monograph of the Geological Survey is The Flora of the Dakota Group, a work on fossil botany by the late Leo Lesquereux (Geological Survey, $1.10). The specimens from which the descriptions in this work were written are mostly in the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy at Cambridge, the museum of the University of Kansas, and the private cabinet of Mr, R. D. Lacoe, of Pittston, Pa. This was the last production of its author, and the chief events of his life are appropriately set forth in the editor's preface.

A monograph on the Gasteropoda and Cephalopoda of the Raritan Clays and Green-sand Mark of New Jersey, by Robert Parr Whitfield, is the eighteenth in the series of the Geological Survey, and forms also a part of the report on the Survey of the State of New Jersey. The material for this report was very meager, the gasteropods being represented in the several formations only by casts and the cephalopods largely by fragments. Fifty plates, each bearing from one to thirty figures, illustrate the text.

The United States Geological Survey has issued A Dakota-English Dictionary, by Stephen Return Riggs, a quarto volume of 665 pages. The author, who died in 1883, was a student of the language for missionary use for over thirty years, having prepared a grammar and dictionary that was published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1852. The present volume has been edited by James Owen Dorsey.

In the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1889-'90 it is shown that the property used for common schools had reached the value of $350,000,000, an average increase of $10,000,000 a year since 1870. In the same period the school attendance in the South Atlantic States had risen from six to twenty-two per cent of the whole population, and in the South Central States from seven and a half to twenty-three and a half per cent. The enrollment for the whole country is twenty-three per cent. This is a better showing than that of any other nation except Saxony. But many European states have a much longer yearly session than we have. Here, says the commissioner, is the place to show improvement in future years. Among the subjects on which special reports are presented are the educational congresses held in Paris in 1889, education in Scotland, the higher schools of Prussia and the school conference of 1890, temperance instruction, and the curricula of professional schools. Numerous other topics receive attention also, and there are the usual statistics.



PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Aëonautics. M. N. Forney, Editor and Proprietor. New York: American Engineering and Railroad Journal. Monthly. Pp. 1. 10 cents. $1 a year.

Arnold, Thomas K. First and Second Latin Book. Pp 416.—Latin Prose Composition. American Book Company. Pp. 415. $1 each.

Bardeen, C. W. History of Educational Journalism in the State of New York. Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W. Bardeen. Pp. 45. 10 cents.

Bedell, rederick, and Crehore, A. C. Alternating Currents. New York: W. J. Johnston Co., limited. Pp. 325.

Benedict, James E. West African Crustaceans. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. Pp. 10.

Bennet, C. W. History of the Philosophy of Pedagogics. Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W. Bardeen. Pp. 43. 50 cents.

Bowen Cooke. C. J. British Locomotives. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 376. S.

Bradford, E. G. Search Lights and Guide Lines (Man and Nature, etc.). New York: Fowler & Wells Co. Pp. 103.

Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. Prospectus for 1893-'94. Pp. 55.

Brown, Marshall. Bulls and Blunders. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. Pp. 304. $1.

Calvin, Samuel, State Geologist, and Assistants. Iowa Geological Survey, 1892. Volume I. Des Moines. Pp. 472.

Carter, Oscar, C. S. Artesian Wells. Pp. 9.

Carus, Dr. Paul. Our Need of Philosophy. Pp. 14. The Religion of Science. Pp. 103. 25 cents.

Cox, Frank P. Continuous-current Dynamos and Motors. New York: W. J. Johnston Co., limited. Pp. 271.

Dall, William Healey. A Subtropical Miocene Fauna in Arctic Siberia. United States National Museum. Pp. 10, with Plate.

Davy, R. B., M. D., Olema, Cal. Evolution and Involution of the Special Senses. Pp. 10.

De Quincey, Thomas. Joan of Arc and The English Mail Coach. Edited, etc., by J. M. Hart. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 138.

Drake, N. F., and Thompson, R. A. Report on the Colorado Coal Field of Texas. Austin. Pp. 136, with Maps.

Fontaine, William M. Fossil Plants from the Trinity Division, Texas. United States National Museum. Pp. 26, with Plates.

Gould, George M., M. D., Philadelphia. The Duty of the Community to Medical Science. Pp. 12.—A Temporary Change in the Axis of Astigmatism. P. 1.—The Meaning and the Method of Life, reviewed by Josiah Roice. Pp. 7.—The Medical Press. Pp. 12.—The Spelling of some Medical Words. Pp. 8.—The Pernicious Influence of Albinism on the Eye. Pp. 10.—A New Illustrated Dictionary of Medicine, Biology, and Collateral Sciences. Specimen pages.